Chapter 250: The Ultimate Move
“In any case, wait until Brother has completely fallen in love with me before bringing me back from the Zhou Family. Otherwise, I’m afraid I won’t be able to restrain my jealousy when I see that vixen.”
That was exactly what Yuki had told him.
Her underlying logic was as twisted as it was straightforward: if she moved in right now, she would inevitably end up eavesdropping on the intimate sounds of Rovel and Yae Sakura behind closed doors. And if she had to listen to all of that without being allowed to join in… well, she might just lose her mind entirely.
Rovel could only sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose. She truly was his precious younger sister. Somehow, she always managed to string words together in a way that made his brain physically tremble. It was honestly a little difficult to comprehend how a human mind could arrange a sentence with that specific brand of dangerous affection.
“Husband…” Yae Sakura murmured, her voice soft and laced with guilt. Her fox ears drooped slightly against her hair. She looked entirely self-reproachful, clearly believing that Yuki was unwilling to leave the Zhou Family solely because of her presence.
“It’s not your fault,” Rovel said softly. He reached out, gently stroking the top of Sakura’s head to soothe her troubled emotions. His fingers threaded through her pink hair, offering a warm, reassuring weight.
Sakura leaned into his touch, nuzzling against his palm like an affectionate cat. A faint, rosy flush crept across her cheeks, and the look in her eyes shifted, melting into something far more hazy and inviting.
Seeing her look at him like that, with the atmosphere already thick and heavy between them, what else could Rovel possibly say? It was definitely time for another round.
“Huff… huff… huff…”
Kiana’s heavy pants echoed across the training grounds, her chest heaving with every desperate breath. Sweat plastered her white hair to her forehead, dripping down her chin to splash against the floor. By now, her Kaslana instincts had fully awakened. She could roughly track the trajectory of the incoming arrows, twisting and contorting her exhausted body just in time to let the deadly projectiles graze past her clothes.
The disorienting, nauseating influence of the Luo Wuzhe illusion was steadily losing its grip on her mind.
Seeing her progress, Rovel snapped his fingers, deactivating the illusion entirely. Kiana let out a muffled groan, her knees buckling slightly, but she held her ground. Unlike her very first attempt, she didn’t instantly sprint to the corner to empty the contents of her stomach.
“Not bad at all,” Rovel said, nodding with genuine satisfaction. He crossed his arms, observing her trembling but stable stance. “Your spatial awareness and internal perception are growing sharper by the minute. To complete the first stage of this training in a mere three days… you’re doing well.”
“Hmph.” Kiana wiped her nose with her index finger, a bright, obvious flash of pride lighting up her exhausted features. She puffed out her chest, clearly pleased with the praise.
“Don’t get cocky just yet. Next, we are going to drastically strengthen your perception of the outside world,” Rovel announced, his tone shifting back to that of a strict instructor. “First, let’s see how quickly you can adapt to losing your vision.”
He raised his hand. “Xuanyuan Transformation: Crimson Absolute Shadow!”
The golden Xuanyuan Sword in Rovel’s grasp instantly shattered into fragments of light before reforming. The new blade, Crimson Absolute Shadow, extended to a staggering five feet and nine inches. Converted to modern measurements, the weapon was nearly two meters long.
The blade itself glowed with a vicious, superheated crimson light, looking as though it had just been pulled straight from a blacksmith’s quenching forge. Its slender, curved shape heavily resembled a traditional Miaodao.
Rovel gave the massive weapon a casual swing. Despite its intimidating size, it felt as light as a single feather in his grip. Still, he had to admit that wielding a sword this absurdly long in actual combat wasn’t his style; he honestly had no idea how Ma Feima managed to fight with something like this on a daily basis. Fortunately, Rovel didn’t need it for a duel. He only needed its unique property: the absolute manipulation of light.
“Lose my vision?” Kiana swallowed hard, but she gave a firm nod, shifting into a defensive stance. “I’m ready.”
In the very next second, the world vanished.
Absolute, suffocating darkness swallowed Kiana’s sight. Even though they were standing in a brightly lit room in the middle of the day, she couldn’t even see her own hands waving frantically in front of her face.
Thankfully, having just survived the grueling spatial deprivation training of the Luo Wuzhe illusion, Kiana didn’t panic. She forced her breathing to steady, closing her useless eyes and focusing every ounce of her attention on the subtle shifts in her environment.
Swish!
A low, sharp sound of something slicing through the air whistled toward her. Kiana’s instincts flared. She immediately tilted her head to the side, executing a perfect dodge.
But entirely against the laws of physics, the ‘arrow’ abruptly altered its trajectory mid-flight, snapping downward to smack accurately against the top of her skull.
“Hiss… ow!” Kiana immediately clutched her head, crouching down into a tight ball. “You bastard Rovel! You’re not shooting arrows at all!”
“I never actually said I was shooting arrows,” Rovel replied, his voice calm and entirely unapologetic. “Didn’t I just swap my bow for a giant sword? I don’t exactly have any other useful long-range weapons lying around right now. Unless, of course, you want me to switch to the Morning Star?”
Hearing his voice so clearly, Kiana realized Rovel was standing right in front of her.
“Morning Star? What the heck is that?” Kiana looked up, her unseeing eyes blinking in confusion.
“It’s the primary sniper rifle that pairs with my armor set,” Rovel explained, his tone overly helpful. “It packs enough kinetic force to completely shatter the outer shell of an Emperor-class Honkai Beast with a single shot. Want me to switch to that instead?”
He graciously left the choice in her hands.
“…Are you actively trying to murder me?” Kiana stared blankly in his general direction. Even though she was completely blind, she could vividly picture the teasing, playful smirk plastered across Rovel’s face.
A single shot could crack an Emperor-class Honkai Beast? If that thing hit her, there wouldn’t even be enough left of her to scrape off the floor!
“Exactly. But you just gave me a much better idea,” Rovel chuckled, deactivating the blinding effect of the Crimson Absolute Shadow. The lights flickered back into Kiana’s vision, making her wince. “Let’s head over to the combat simulation training room. I’ll just spawn a few archer Death Soldiers for you to play with.”
A few minutes later, the simulation room hummed to life. At first, Kiana stumbled clumsily, completely unaccustomed to fighting blind against moving targets. But her terrifying Kaslana combat talent quickly took over. In barely half an hour, she had completely adapted to the sensory deprivation.
No matter how rapidly the five simulated Death Soldiers fired their arrows, they couldn’t even graze a single strand of Kiana’s white hair. Worse for them, Kiana flawlessly tracked their positions based on the sound of their bowstrings, rushing in and dismantling them one by one with brutal efficiency.
Seeing her adapt so easily, Rovel raised a hand and activated Wind-Clear Willow, instantly stripping away her sense of hearing as well.
This time, Kiana adapted even faster. It took her less than ten minutes to adjust to the terrifying void of absolute silence and darkness.
It was clear that the torturous sessions with the Luo Wuzhe illusion had laid a flawless foundation. Now, even completely stripped of sight and sound, Kiana could feel the minute changes in the surrounding airflow brushing against her bare skin. A shifting breeze, the displacement of air from a drawn bow—it was all the warning she needed to react with explosive speed.
To reach this level of sensory mastery in just three days proved that Kiana’s innate talent for combat was nothing short of monstrous.
“Excellent,” Rovel called out, restoring her senses. “This officially counts as temporarily completing the periodic training required to form the Sword Heart. Next, as long as you don’t slack off, you’ll be able to fully condense your Sword Heart in a few days at most!”
He spoke with absolute confidence. He valued this specific training highly, knowing that beneath Kiana’s goofy exterior lay a will of iron that could not be easily broken.
More, condensing the Sword Heart would grant her absolute mastery over her own internal power. When the inevitable day came for her to face Sirin’s awakening, this foundation would give her the vital capital she needed to resist the Herrscher’s corruption.
“Yay!” Kiana cheered, jumping high into the air and pumping her fist.
“Don’t celebrate just yet. You still need to keep listening to that audio clip I sent to your phone. It would be best if you could memorize the entire mantra,” Rovel reminded her, crossing his arms.
“Ah…” Kiana’s bright smile instantly collapsed, her shoulders slumping in defeat. “But that recording is so long and hypnotic! I have no idea what all that ancient poetry even means. Do I really have to memorize it?”
Whenever a task involved non-combat academics or actually using her brain, Kiana’s default response was to play dead.
“It’s fine. If you can’t memorize it right away, listen to it a thousand times. Ten thousand times if you have to. It will eventually carve itself into your memory,” Rovel said, entirely unfazed by her whining.
He stepped closer, his expression losing all traces of its previous humor. “Kiana, listen to me. It is precisely because your talent is so overwhelming that you cannot afford to waste it right now.”
He looked directly into her blue eyes, his gaze heavy with unspoken weight. “If you slack off now, there will come a day when you desperately need power to protect what matters to you. And on that day, you will absolutely hate yourself for not working just a little bit harder when you had the chance.”
“…Mm.”
Kiana blinked, slightly taken aback. Although she didn’t fully understand why Rovel had suddenly become so intensely solemn, the raw sincerity in his voice reached her. She nodded vigorously, her expression turning serious. “I understand. I’ll do it.”
Seeing her resolve, Rovel smiled, the heavy atmosphere instantly vanishing. “Good. Once your Sword Heart is fully formed, I’ll start teaching you the final stage: Sword God. It’s a guaranteed one-hit-kill ultimate move!”
He tossed the bait perfectly, giving her the exact motivation she needed.
“An ultimate move?!” Kiana’s eyes practically turned into sparkling stars. “How big is it? Does it look cool?”
“It’s massive. At the very least, it’s as big as a three or four-story building crashing down from the sky,” Rovel laughed. “Using it to instantly obliterate an Emperor-class Honkai Beast is a walk in the park. Hell, even if you run into a colossal Judgment-class Honkai Beast like Chiyou, Sword God packs enough destructive force to give it a seriously hard time.”
Kiana’s fists clenched, her entire body practically vibrating with renewed motivation. She clearly remembered the terrifying, mountain-like scale of Chiyou. If even a monster of that impossible size couldn’t withstand this technique, she couldn’t even begin to imagine just how ridiculously overpowered Sword God really was.
[Inorin’s Note: